Tag: social media

Hey Gannett, Why Buy More Papers?

networks

As of this writing, it’s quite possible that Gannett has bought Tronc (a.k.a. Tribune Publishing.) As many media watchers know, Gannett has made a series of offers to Tronc this year. Based on a report from Politico Media today, the deal appears to be all but announced.

Whether you’re inside or outside the media business you may be wondering why exactly Gannett is in such a hurry to snap up Tronc, one of the country’s largest metro newspaper publishers. One thing is for sure, it’s not necessarily about publishing more print newspapers.

Newspapers and journalism have been in the midst of a great deal of industry upheaval and change for the past decade. The future of newspaper publishing isn’t about growing print circulation. Rather, the future is about digital (meaning video, really) content distribution to a valued audience of reliable news and content consumers. Metro newspaper publishers are aiming to deepen their relationships, and drive revenue, by providing their loyal news consumers with more content overall and more mobile-friendly content, to be precise.

Tronc owns the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, the San Diego Union Tribune, the Orlando Sentinel, the South Florida Sun Sentinel and several other large metro papers. In other words Tronc has audiences in several top ten media markets. According to ComScore, Tronc’s online audience exceeds that of the Washington Post and nearly matches Disney. As you might expect, these are among the largest audiences on the web.

Gannett is already the largest newspaper publisher in the county. The purchase of Tronc, with it’s large online audiences, content distribution network and investments in video production,  position Gannett to be a major player in the future of content, information and entertainment. A future that is, more or less, already here.

Post by Jim Jinks

Top Marketers to Follow @Twitter

I started using Twitter, somewhat, back in 2011. It wasn’t until 2014 that I began to be more of a daily user and started to publish tweets on a regular basis. Twitter launched in 2006 so I was a relatively late adopter -perhaps I should have little to say- but it’s 2016 and especially if you’re a salesperson for a digital and/or print publisher, you really need to be using Twitter by now.

Twitter

It really is an invaluable tool for keeping up with the news of the day, especially in both the publishing and marketing industries. For one thing, your publication’s editorial department is using Twitter. Second, many of your clients are likely using Twitter and the advertising agency buyers you call on are for sure using Twitter. Why aren’t you?

In a less than scientific survey of media reps, these are the three most frequent reasons for not using Twitter:

  1. Why would I use it if I don’t know who to follow?
  2. I don’t think anyone would care what I tweet so why bother?
  3. I already get plenty of industry email newsletters…I don’t have time for Twitter!

Let’s start with #3.

Are you reading those industry email newsletters? If you’re following the knowledgeable people that actually aim to offer their audience valuable insights and support, then it’s relatively easy to glance at Twitter -here and there throughout the day- without it taking too much time or being disruptive to your workflow.

Regarding the second objection to Twitter (”I don’t think anyone would care what I tweet.”), you may be surprised at your own value to others in your industry so don’t hesitate to tweet out if you have an original thought or something to say. But also, no one is forcing you to tweet. You can use Twitter, and it is still valuable to you, even if you never ever respond or share anything on Twitter.

Now #1 is indeed a valid objection and I can relate. Twitter is a little intimidating at first, because after all, we don’t know what we don’t know. But for those of you ready to try something new and you’d appreciate a little help in taking the leap, here’s a few leading voices in marketing to consider following, be inspired by and perhaps learn from on Twitter:

@jeffbullas

@kimgarst

@jaybaer

@dharmesh

@JoePulizzi

Of course, there are at least forty other thought leaders one could follow. But once you get started you’ll learn quickly how to curate your own list.

Be well and good luck!

Post by Jim Jinks (@JimJinksCT and @Mediabids)

 

 

Have News Publishers Become Dangerously Dependent on Facebook?

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In an interesting post on The Monday Note the author Frederic Filloux outlined the tough spot news publishers have found themselves in when it comes to distributing their content on Facebook.

On the one hand, content producers need all the article distribution and eyeballs they can get, and Facebook provides them, en masse. According to Filloux, “Today, Facebook drives about 40% of all referrals and Google drives about 35%.” That’s an insane amount of referral traffic, and much the reason why newspapers and magazines started using Facebook’s “Instant Articles” platform to publish content directly to users. That, and the fact that Instant Articles purported to provide the reader with a better, faster article loading experience to aid in ease of reading. Ideally, this would provide a huge amount of traffic to the articles, and eventually provide ad revenue either via the publisher’s site direct or through Facebook Ads itself.

Alas, it seems things may not be working out as planned on the publisher side, as Facebook recently changed their News Feed algorithm to display news from friends and family first, while lowering the priority of Instant Articles. Essentially, publishers can post articles all day long, but Facebook ultimately controls how many people, and exactly who, the content will be display to.

How publishers will react to this remains to be seen. Have they become so dependent on the Facebook traffic that they will pay the increasingly high ad prices to maintain and grow the audience they’ve been working to engage? Facebook hopes so. Will they pull back on Instant Articles and refocus on different distribution methods? A definite possibility.

If you’ve thought about publishing via Instant Articles, we’d highly recommend you read Filloux’s piece on the tenuous relationship between Facebook & content providers – it is very insightful. Find his full post here: https://mondaynote.com/news-publishers-facebook-problem-6752f1c35037#.bjqhs54ze

Post by Jess Greiner